Boxing dislocation

[IamInuit]

You might want to try a different sport.

[erics44]

You might want to try a different sport.

or just punch with one arm

[AdamGB]

You might want to try a different sport.

Bullshit. Do you have any idea how common shoulder problems are in boxing? The ammount of stress that is placed on the joint is extremely high. Most shoulder injuries can be prevented and a lot of them treated with no surgery (that fact that he has tried to continue boxing and swam suggest that it isn't completely fucked).

Boxing is so fucking backward when to comes to sports science.

I dislocated my shoulder in my last bout (I even twinged it swimming similar to the original poster). This was partly down to me breaking my collar bone as a kid, the joint didn't set perfectly because the bone healed slightly crooked. It was mostly down to the ammount of throwing/forward pressing in boxing... any throwing sport is the same - tonnes of shoulder problems.

Unfortunatly as long as boxing coaches keep shunning modern training methods in place of endless press ups, punches, incorrectly performed squats and sit ups most fighters supporting muscles, posture, hip activation and posterior chain are going to remain problem areas. But most of all SHOULDERS

I had no idea what I was doing when I injured mine... had I had a clue - it would probably not have happened and if it did my recovery would have been much faster.

The problem with shoulders is that the joint needs to be stable but it also has the biggest range of motion in the body. stability and ROM don't really go hand in hand.

I'm going to guess that you have either torn or impinged one of the muscles in your shoulder cavity... probably the infraspinatus.

This has likely happened because boxing has tightened up of all of the muscles surrounding the front of your shoulder (pecs, anterior delt) etc, this tightness will roll your shoulders forwards tightening your shoulder cavity and restricting the correct movement of your shoulder. when this happens you are much more likely to suffer a partial or full dislocation, tearing and nipping the muscles in your shoulder joint as it happens... this inflames the muscles making them swell - further increasing the chances of niping them again... and you get caught in this stupid loop.

Also as punches are thrown in boxing, the shoulder joint needs to be stable to cope with the force transfering through your arm.

If your rotator cuff muscles had been stronger then it may have been able to stablise the shoulder and stop it from coming out.

Going back to what I was saying earlier, most boxing work outs are archiac and over work the anterior muscles whilst neglecting the posterior (back) muscles... the fact that boxers spend hour and hours a week boxing with their shoulders hunches forwards and punching means that they really need to work hard to over come the anterior tension that this causes, both to properly align the upper spin and shoulders and to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles that stabilise the joint.

The closest most old school trainers will come to training your back correctly is with pull ups.... and whilst pull ups are a great exercise they aren't ideal for shoulder health, the lats insert at the front of the shoulder so tight lats will actually make your shoulders roll in too... for correcting posture issues I find exercises like bent over row and reverse fly much better... but a lot of boxing coaches still follow the line that 'weights are bad' (despite the fact that your body weight is still a weight... it's how you use the weight that counts), so movements like these foten get neglected.

Prehabbing the joint could have prevent you and mine's shoulder injuires... but hindsight is a wonderfull thing, right?

What I would reccomend for you now:

a) Firstly, get a sports massage to try and get the knots out of your chest/anterior deltoids (we need to stretch the tension out... but you can't stretch a knot... so you have to get them removed...) and also to remove any scar tissue and tension from the rest of your shoulder muscles (again, we are going to try to strengthening these muscles and increase their range of motion, but knots will limit what you can do). An elbow in the right place can do wonders (but will bloody hurt!).

b) After you've had the knots worked out you can start to do some progressive stretching on your chest and anterior delts, this should help to properly align your shoulders, along with our next step which is...

c) Start doing more compound movements like bent over row/reverse row to strengthen your rhomboids and posterior deltoids, this should pull your shoulders to a healthier position and get rid of any sluch in your upper spine that you may have.

d) start isolating your rotator cuff muscles to strengthen them and teach your body how to activate them them. There are various movements that you can do using weights (cuban rotation, head halos) resistance bands or cables (external rotation) or suspendion trainers (Reverse Flys and Y raises). A posterior capsule stretch will lengthen the muscle fibres, helping them contract better.

All of this should hopefully strengthen the joint and prevent further dislocations... I can't go that indepth without being able to actually demonstrate the exercise to you.... but this should get you going in the right direction.

See it as a basic guide to shoulder rehab (or prehab for anybody reading who wants to lesson the chances of damaging their shoulders)

[AdamGB]

You can do some good stuff on suspension trainers

[Burgie]

Ok -- I have just had two operations and a reconstruction... Rotator Cuff initial injury...

Get an MRI -- Go to a specialist. Exercise may risk building scar tissue or bursitis..

See a specialist again -- Get their advice.. They are the ones who know what is going on. And make sure it is a good orthopaedic surgeon, find one that operates on pro sports players etc.. not just some dag in a hospital (my shoulder was fucked worse by my first surgeon who said nothing was wrong really... idiot - then got onto a legend who fixed it basically)